Theater icon Nele Hertling receives the German Theater Prize Der Faust 2024”!

Theater icon Nele Hertling receives the German Theater Prize Der Faust 2024”!

Gera, Deutschland - Gera (dpa)- A radiant moment for the theater world: Nele Hertling, the legendary theater director, was honored for her life's work at the German Theater Prize "The Faust 2024"! With a passionate appeal to politics, the 90-year-old demanded: "Take the theater seriously!" And warned urgently shortening of the cultural funds. At the ceremonial award ceremony in the Altenburg Theater, she emphasized the indispensable role of the theater in all its facets.

Hertling, who had to flee to northern Germany with her Jewish mother as a child in the Nazi era, remembered forgetting stressful thoughts for a moment. Their moving life story and their tireless efforts for art make them a real icon of the theater landscape.

a cultural icon

As a formative personality, Hertling launched the international performance festival "Pantomime Music Tanz Theater" and designed the important dance festival "Dance in August". From 1989 to 2003 she headed the Berlin Hebbel Theater and shaped the program of the cultural capital of Europe in 1988 in Berlin. Since 2017 she has been the director of the Section of the Art at the Academy of Arts and continues to work for innovative projects.

But that wasn't everything! The perspective prize of the federal states went to the theater youth club of the Thuringian Theater Nordhausen/Loh-Orchester Sondershausen. Further outstanding talents were awarded in a total of twelve categories, including Zarina Stahnke for dance and Anna Drexler for drama. The German stage association has been awarding the "Faust" since 2006 in cooperation with the German Academy of Performing Arts and the Cultural Foundation of the States, whereby the winners are determined in a multi -stage selection process.